Tokyo-3 Arcana
Please Read and Review. I'd like to know what I'm doing right (to keep doing it), and what I'm I doing wrong (to correct it).
Chapter 8
Divine Intervention
Tokyo-3 Horaki Household.
Later That Same Day, 4:55 P.M.
"Hi, Asuka! Shinji!" Hikari greeted her friends from school at the door of her house. She was very much surprised by Shinji's presence. As far as she knew, he hadn't ever even walked home any of the school girls in his class, except once, visiting Ayanami to give her the homework after one of her absences; and he seemed very reticent to talk about his visit, despite the insistent badgering from the other two Stooges.
"Hey, Hikari!" Asuka returned the greeting, and moved aside for Shinji.
"Hello, Hikari. I'm sorry to drop by without notice," he said, with a voice that seemed strangely changed. It had lost most of his hesitance to speak, "Asuka told me about your new tenant, I would really like to speak with her, is she here?"
"Hum..." 'What could Shinji want to talk about with Limiry?' Hikari thought, while she played with her hands for a moment. Until Asuka grabbed her arm.
"Hikari, it is important. Shinji knows." She tightened her grip as she noticed the furrow in Hikari's brow. She shot a quick, deferential look at Shinji, who simply nodded minutely. "He knows. He's magical too."
"What?" Hikari almost yelled her question.
"Shh! Not here!" Asuka covered Hikari's mouth with a hand, a moment later, she released her. "We will tell you later; right now, Shinji really needs to speak to your friend."
"O-okay, I'll fetch her." She guided them to the garden at the back of the house, where a nice table sat under the shadow of a tree.
Asuka smiled at Hikari, and turned to Shinji."I'll explain things to Hikari while you two talk, okay?" He nodded once, with an applomb Hikari never had thought possible for him. Asuka's attitude surprised Hikari more than even the news that Shinji had some kind of magical ability. Since when did Asuka even considered defering to Shinji in anything?
Hikari set a teaset on the garden table. "I'll leave you to talk. Nozomi is out in a playdate with a friend from her school, and Kodama is working. Father will come back from work in about an hour."
"Thank you, Hikari." Shinji pulled a seat for Limiry before seating himself. "I don't think this will take long."
Hikari nodded, and was pulled away by Asuka. "C'mon Hikari! I want to show you something."
Once both friends had gone, Shinji poured two teacups, and took a couple of cookies from the plate. All the while looking at Limiry, studying her. "I'll go straight to the point, I need to know who you are, what are you, and what are your intentions to the Hokari family."
Limiry shrank a little on the too big chair. "Sheesh! Relax a little, boy, you'll live longer!" Limiry took her cup, and sipped carefully. She didn't like the boy's attitude. Too tightly wound, indeed.
Shinji's eyes bore into her, like trying to dig out her secrets with mere force of will. Finally, the gnome cleric cracked, "Okay, okay. My name is Limiry Siggari. I came from some other place I can't really remember all that well. I'm a cleric of Desna's, and Hikari and her family are my friends. Hikari offered me a roof to have over my head, and I'm helping her and her family with some chores, AND also blessed the house and its occupants in the name of Desna, to grant them some protection should they need it. That good enough for you?"
Shinji held her gaze for a long time, a very long time; she squirmed unconfortably under his gaze.
Finally, Shinji exhaled. "Yeah. Good enough. For now. Let's be very clear about this. Hikari is a friend of mine. Not very close, I admit it; but she's a friend, and that's very important to me. I won't allow any of my friends to be harmed if I can stop it."
"Yeesh! Intense a bit, boy! You're gonna sprain something if you don't knock it down a few steps."
Shinji shrugged. "Maybe." He sipped from his cup. And changed subject abruptly. "Strange, I'm not familiar with your race."
Limiry's eyebrows shot up. "I'm a gnome. I'd say you should even recognize the pretty color combo I have!"
"A gnome." He repeated after her, toughtfully. Surprise was clear on his face. "A gnome." He repeated again, furrowing his brow. He nodded twice, to himself. "My apologies. You don't really look like any gnome I've met before. The few ones I met didn't have your vibrant coloring. Well, their clothes did, and they wore big, complicated hats."
"Yeah. Males for sure." Limiry shrugged dismissively, playing with one of her ringlets. Everybody knew complicated hair styles were so much better than any old headgear.
Shinji changed subject again. "So, a cleric of Desna? Tell me about him, please." He poured himself a bit more tea. For some reason, Shinji's demeanor went cold as he asked the question. Well... colder..
Limiry didn't know the thoughts that were chasing each other in Shinji's mind. So she answered "Her. Desna is a goddess." Limiry pouted a bit.
In the privacy of his mind, Shinji was desperately running down the list of the Oeridian gods and goddesses he knew of. Desna's name didn't ring a bell. The presence of a god on Earth was bad enough. An unknown god was even worse! It meant the playing board was changing, and he needed to get up to date before a disaster came.
The Justicar's rough voice rang clear and strong in Shinji's mind. 'Know your enemy, information is your best weapon.' He had said many times. And Shinji was a good pupil to the shaven-headed man.
'Get them to talk, be attentive, and they will tell you what you need to know. Be charming! Be bold! Play with them if you want!' Escalla's clear and playful voice drowned Jus'. The faerie princess especiality was worming out things the enemy didn't want to be known; and she did it with stealth, cunning, guile, charm and a brazen attitute. 'And the best and most beautiful derriere in the whole of Oerth, don't you forget that, Shinji-chan!' That last imaginary voice was followed closely by Jus' annoyed sigh.
Shinji shook his head to clear his mind, waving a hand as if getting rid of some annoying insect. Sometimes Escalla's force of personality overwhelmed his mental discipline.
He composed himself, turned up the charm as Escalla had taught him. "My apologies. It seems my knowledge is severely lacking. Please, tell me about her."
Limiry looked at him sideways. The human was kinda rough, but seemed sincere.
"Very well, Desna is the goddess of dreams, travelers, stars, and luck. While the other gods and goddesses created the world, she went to the heavens and created the stars... " she recited. Shinji paid close attention to her story. He needed to know as much as he could about this new goddess.
"He's a wizard?"
"No. A sorcerer. Not the same thing." Asuka explained. "He told me they use different kinds ofmagic. Or ways to use magic." A proud smile appeared in Asuka's face. "I'm a wizardress in training!"
"Really?"
"Really," Asuka's voice dropped conspiratorially. "Shinji already taught me a spell. Look." She dug in her skirt pockets, and extracted a dead bug.
"Ew!" Hikari recoiled a bit, but her curiosity won in the end. "What's that?"
"A firefly. Look." She stood up, and closed the curtains, the room darkened considerably. She held up the bug in the palm of her left hand, along with a pen she took from Hikari's desk. "Lumos!" she said with a smile, contorting her fingers in a strange way. Somehow, the dead insect disappeared, and a soft light spread from the palm of her hand. A second later, the pen glowed like a lantern!
Hikari's jaw dropped.
"Shinji has been teaching me. Who would have thought he had literal magic waiting to awake?"
Hikari took the pen from Asuka's hand. She examined it closely. It shone bright in the darkened room.
Asuka kept talking. "Shinji uses a different word, something that sounds like Bewgath. It didn't work for me, until I had the idea of using the invocation from the old Harry Potter books! And then it worked like... a... charm!" She smiled at her awful pun.
Enthusiastically, Hikari grabbed Asuka's hands, dropping the pen to the bed. "This is great! I'm so happy for you!"
Asuka preened self-importantly. "And he said he has some kind of magical object that will teach me more powerful spells! The Tome of Arcane Knowledge! With that name, it must be a big book, bound in leather, parchment pages, and metal clasps! Like in the old movies!"
"A teaching book? I'd like to see one!"
"I know! I've been bursting to tell you since Shinji told me I had magic. But he also said it would be dangerous if somebody else knew about it, so I had to keep it secret. But as you already know about magic, he said it's okay to tell you. But I have to ask you to keep it secret too. He will tell you more later. As your friend, I asked him to let you know about things."
"Oh!" it seemed the implications of revealing magic was real were harsher than Hikari had thought before. She had thought it would just lead to some mocking and maybe a bit of bullying in the worst case. But if it worried Asuka, who fought giant monsters for a living and boasted about it...
A while later, once Asuka had told Hikari everything Shinji had appoved. There was a knock on the door.
Shinji stood outside, with Limiry at his side. Tere was a strange expression on his face, like he had swallowed a lemon. "Hikari, we four need to halve a long talk. Things are getting complicated and possibly dangerous. Tomorrow, after class, okay?"
"Sure. But tomorrow is Kodama´s free day, and she will probably want to stay here with Nozomi."
"At Misato´s then. We go there after school. I´ll take care of the food." He smiled wearily. "I have a recipe I want to try."
"Oh, oh! Is it a dessert? I like berries!" Limiry almost jumped.
"I-I´ll make some cake too."
"YES! BERRIES!" Limiry hugged his legs, almost knocking him down.
New Orleans, USA
3:24 A.M. (local time)
"Oh, my! What are you doing so far from home, my child?" The man said, a hand waving away the last wisps of the mist that had appeared in the street a few minutes before.
"I'm lost. I don't know where my mommy is… Can you help me, sir?" the girl looked at him with big, round, innocent, brown eyes. It seemed she was about to cry. She tightened her grip on her brown teddy bear.
The man smiled in the shadows, 'I can't believe it! A girl this young is worth big bucks!'. Anticipating a good time with his young, oh-so-very-innocent, prey; and later a good pay from some guys he knew, the man extended a hand towards the girl. She put her teddy bear under her left arm, and took the man's hand.
"Let's cut through this alley, we will make better time and maybe find your mommy sooner."
The girl nodded.
The pair walked into the dark alley.
Next day, the screams of a waitress would startle the whole neighbourhood. The poor girl had a terrible scare when she found the mangled body next to the restaurant dumpster.
The coroner had no idea of what exactly was the cause of death. He couldn't choose between crushing of the ribcage, strangulation with an electric cord, and almost complete exsanguination. The ripped wound on his throat wasn't exactly easy to miss. The larynx had been practically ripped off.
In the end, he simply listed the probable causes in order of speed. The fastest first. After all, a ripped out throat would kill the victim way before the crushing, the strangulation, and the exsanguination.
A look on the face of the victim was enough to put even a long time veteran of the forensic sciences out of his lunch. And considering the many violent deaths he had untangled during his 24 years of service, it was saying something
At least identifying the victim had been easy, the corpse still carried his ID. And the fingerprints just confirmed it. Rudolph "Rubberstamp" Hilliard. A two-bit player in the criminal underworld of New Orleans. 36 years old, and with a list of arrests and minor offenses the length of his arm. A creep by any definition, with so many enemies that it would be a nightmare just to compile a list.
Anyway, he wouldn't be missed by anybody. Whoever had killed him had done the world a small favor.
Tokyo-3 Horaki Household. (In a way)
Hikari's Bedroom
That Same Night, 2:53 A.M.
"My, my! What do we have here? A whole new world and a song that calls me from far away!" A feminine voice rang in Hikari's dreams. It was a voice full of curiosity, of hope, of… dreams. Cherished and unrealized dreams. The sing song accent was unfamiliar.
"Hello?" Hikari's dream self asked timidly.
"Hello, my child! You are so very far from my palace. It is your light that calls me with its song. I see you have met another of my children. She has traveled far, so very far." A proud smile could be Heard in the voice.
Hikari's puzzled expression shone brightly in the dreamscape.
"Your friend, Limiry. She has arrived to your world and she carries my message in her heart. If you want to walk that path, you are very welcome. It is not easy, and it isn't quick; but there are good things awaiting for you."
"Who are you, exactly?" Hikari felt a strange sense of reality to this dream. Somehow, she knew in the bottom of her heart that this wasn't just a simple dream.
A tall, willowy woman with beautiful butterfly wings the color of saphphire, appeared next to her. A transparent gown flowed around her body, floating in the cool night breeze. She trod lightly on a path that seemed to be made of a slice of the night sky, full of beautiful, shining stars. The winged woman shook her head, and her long black hair twirled around her body. Hikari saw two long ears standing proudly at the sides of the woman's head, like the aelven characters in the anime she liked to watch as a child. The woman fixed her silvery eyes upon Hikari's. And spoke again, "I am Desna, my child. Lady of Dreams, Stars, Luck and Travel. Your soul calls to me from worlds away! How could I refuse to come and see you? And this is a very special dream for me as well. It is my first dream in a new world."
Hikari sat on the grass. "I am dreaming this, right? Limiry told me about you, and I'm dreaming you."
"Ah! You are so very right!" she smiled warmly, "But you are not the only dreamer here. I myself am dreaming you! You are dreaming of me dreaming of you! You have been touched by the fates, my child." Desna's hand caressed Hikari's cheek. She felt loved, and protected.
"But, how?" Hikari's brow forrowed with confusion.
"It doesn't really matter; I am here, you are here. I offer you a choice. Tomorrow, I'll send you a small portent, just so you and Limiry know I am looking over you. She will know it when it happens. Listen to her; and, if you are willing, follow the path that opens before you. But only if you want to. No one is ever forced into my service."
Hikari nodded. A single tear of joy rolled down her cheek.
Desna's smile dropped a bit. Her voice grew sad. "But, I must also warn you. Just as your soul and Limiry's called for me, other souls will call for other gods. Some of them are evil and destructive. Your friends will stand by your side to protect this world and its people."
Somewhere in the Sonora Desert, Mexico
3:24 (local time)
A patch of darkness extended unnaturally over a small gully in the terrain. A small whimpering sound corssed the night.
No creature saw the darkness dissipate like dew under the sun, no creature heard any sound.
Afterwards a set of tracks could be found. Starting right in the middle of the sand, three toed feet, belonging to a two-legged creature.
Had anybody been present, they would have described the creature as a thing that looked remotely like a big lizard or a small dinosaur; with green, finely scaled skin, bifurcated tongue, sharp teeth, and several rows of long black spines like a porcupine's. It's long, thin tail snaked in the air. While the head sniffed around, searching for prey.
The creature was thirsty, and only blood would slake that thirst.
Author Notes.
Shinji seems to be quite hostile to Limiry, especially compared with how he treated Rusilka, but there's a very good reason for that. Limiry is a cleric, a servant of a goddess. Due to a previous experience with a close-minded paladin (look for By the Job, published in Dragon Magazine, issue 271, May 2000), the Justicar's opinion on gods is extremely low. To him, gods are just bullies with power. An attitude shared by Escalla, and eventually, by the rest of the party. Sure, they tend to thread carefully around gods, but also to give them the hot foot whenever they can! Lolth, the drow spider goddess had a couple of nasty clashes with the group. And Toth was utterly humilliated by them. In his own realm, no less!
Interestingly, what happened to Lolth was published at the same time another series of books (War of the Spider Queen) dealt with a much more dramatic series of events. For this story, the events on the novels Descent into the Depths of the Earth and Queen of the Demonweb Pits are canon.
Xxxx
The word Asuka mentions for Shinji's Light spell was taken from the Pathfinder audiodramas, by Big finish. Ezren uses a light type spell several times. The name of the spell itself is never mentioned, and it is quite different from Shinji's. To begin with, it is a sudden and very intense burst of light.
I decided on having Asuka changing the word to Lumos to stress the fact that magic on Oerth works a bit different from magic on Earth. Shinji carries with him that form of magic, so it still works for him. Asuka is learning to use Oeridian magic on Earth, so she has to adapt a bit. She will use a mix of Earth and Oerth magic. Any other magic userswill have to use only Earth magic, unless they are taught by Shinji or Asuka themselves. In which case, they will have to use Asuka's method.
Ah, the Light spell could use a small lightbulb instead of a firefly as a material component. The D20 Modern rulebook lists fosphorescent moss and fireflies as possible material components. This little bit of trivia is based on the Conjure Wife novel by Fritz Leiber (highly reccomended! Both the novel itself and the author. His Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories are one of the pillars modern fantasy is built. And are the archetypes of the D&D Barbarian and Rogue, respectively). The protagonist of Conjure Wife is married to a witch, and gets involved in a kind of cold-war between witches. At some point, he realizes that the material components the witches use have changed with time. And therefore, magic itself changes and adapts to the times. The example mentioned in the novel is a silver whistle, never blown; it worked well back in ancient Greece, but currently, it has been replaced by the needled of a record player, never used.
Xxxx
Usually, Desna communicates with her faithful through dreams and portents. This time, and only this time, she chose to speak directly. Hikari has been chosen to be her very fisrt follower in a new world, so the meeting had to be 'close and personal '.
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Why should the Shadow manifest only in Tokyo-3?
It did appear there first, but it is a global event. New Orleans and the Sonora Desert are the first places with Shadow manifestations outside Tokyo-3, but they won't be the only ones.
